Bitcoin address authentication

You can create an account and authenticate to the OTC system using the standard bitcoin client we all know and love. In short, all you need to do is sign a one-time-password message using a bitcoin address of your choice, and submit the signed message to the bot for verification. The guide below contains a more detailed walkthrough of the process.

Contents

IRC bot

The #bitcoin-otc IRC bot is called gribble. To command the bot in-channel, prefix your line with ";;" (two semicolons). E.g., to ask for a bitcoin price ticker, you can issue the command in channel as

;;ticker

You can also talk to the bot in private message to avoid cluttering up the channel - which you are recommended to do for the purposes of authentication and registration. To start a private session with the bot, type "/query gribble" in your IRC client. When in PM, there's no need to prefix your commands with ";;".

Initial setup

The first step is to download and install the bitcoin client. You can do so at http://bitcoin.org. Most of you will probably already have the client up and running.

Once the client is up and running, it is recommended to create a new bitcoin address that you will use to authenticate to #bitcoin-otc. On the "Receive coins" tab, click the "New address" button, and label it with something that you'll easily recognize (e.g., "bitcoin-otc signing address").

At this point, if you don't already have multiple, secure, and geographically dispersed backups of your bitcoin wallet, you should make them.

Registration

Note: if you are already registered via GPG authentication, use the 'changeaddress' command to add a bitcoin address to your otc account.

To register, choose a nickname (best to use a nick that's the same as your irc nick, but not required), then issue the following command to the bot:

On the 'Receive coins' tab of the bitcoin client, select the signing address, and click the 'Sign message' button. Copy and paste the challenge string, click "Sign message", copy the signed message with the "Copy to clipboard" button, then give the result to the bot with the 'bcverify' command, as follows:

Change address

To change your registered address, (or to add one if you have registered via GPG and don't have an address on file) use the 'changeaddress' command with the new address you wish to use. You must be authenticated to your account in order to use the command. Once you issue the command, the bot will supply you with the challenge that you must sign with your new address and respond with the bcverify command, in the same manner as for normal authentication.